davidburke & donatella
133 East 61st Street
New York, NY 10021
(212) 813-2121


Last night my husband took me to this charming restaurant housed in a townhouse on 61st Street near Bloomingdale's to celebrate my 30th (ugh) birthday. He made the reservation on OpenTable (http://www.opentable.com/), which was easy AND we earned 100 Dining Points. We were seated immediately (one of the perks of dining in Manhattan on the weekend during the summer) in a nice corner table for two.

Very polished service is what you'd expect from a Zagat ALL-CAPS restaurant so I was surprised when from the beginning, I felt as though the B-team was our serving group. Our waiter/sommelier suggested wines without asking if we had a price range, starting with a $110 bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, then a $375 bottle of Chateau Laville Haut-Brion (pronouncing 'Brion' like the name 'Brian'). Perhaps my shocked face gave away that the price range was a bit high (or that he had butchered the pronunciation). I settled for a $48 bottle of Henri Bourgeois Sancerre. On our chargers was a bi-fold paper that contained the tasting menu and specials of the evening; my husband's was blank.

The amuse-bouche served was a pastry filled with short-rib which was good, but a little dry for a meat that's usually melt-in-your-mouth braised. The wine was served a touch warm. Menus were given, and everything was expensive.

I'd like to preface that I wish I had read Adam Platt's 3/15/2004 review in New York Magazine before arriving, but I hadn't. He has an expense account to try all of this food; we do not.

I began with the seared foie gras which I was looking forward to because I LOVE FOIE GRAS. Some bites were salty, some bites were flavorless, some bites tasted chemically. Even the presentation was unattractive. The husband had the lobster bisque served with a lobster roll (imagine a spring roll with lobster). He wolfed down the lobster roll (if it's deep-fried, he'll eat it), but the lobster bisque was disappointingly brothy, rather than rich and creamy. The bits of lobster in the soup were overcooked and chewy.

Entrees were no better: I had the lobster "steak" with curried shoestring fries. Imagine going to a Chinese restaurant and ordering some lobster dish and pouring duck sauce all over it (and over the HUGE mound of literally "shoestring" fries -- not like McDonald's size, but thinner), then adding strong spices that almost overpower the duck sauce... then you would have this dish. For $44, I was sad. My husband almost always orders steak, so as expected, he had the Black Angus prime rib eye steak, medium rare. It was thin (for $41), slightly overcooked (for $41) and very very very salty (for $41). The one saving grace: four pieces of wilted butter (Boston) lettuce with Caesar dressing that accompanied the steak. The dressing was exactly as a Caesar should be. We each ate about 1/3 of our dishes and then hoped dessert would be better.

As usual, I couldn't decide among the desserts, so I asked the B-team waiter which he would choose. We went with a "dbd Classic": warm apple tart with cider caramel and vanilla ice cream. The apple tart was a classic, with a flaky crust, but it required a knife to cut off a bite (you couldn't just cut off a bit with the edge of your spoon or fork). It was good. But the caramel was inedible -- it was just overdone, which, for caramel, is death. Acidic and burnt, I couldn't believe they would put that on the plate.

All in all, I would go there again, but next time, I would do as Adam Platt suggested and get the crispy and angry lobster appetizer and the Dover sole entree (which was a special that I didn't order because it came with sage gnocchi -- I'm not a huge fan of sage -- and acorn squash, which doesn't seem appropriate in July). I forgot to mention that the chef de cuisine (I think his name in the menu was Eric O'Hare) was hot; he was talking to one of the patrons, and he looks like a younger, skinnier Rocco DiSpirito.